


Phil Quits Drugs

by spikedaft



Category: The House is Burning (2006)
Genre: Abortion, Drug Use, Explicit Language, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 12:57:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6611455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spikedaft/pseuds/spikedaft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During Terry's procedure, Phil contemplates how to be rid of his burden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phil Quits Drugs

One day, during the heat of early summer, 23 year old Phil decided that he was going to quit drugs.

This was a year before the shooting. A year before everything went to hell in one horrible night. Terry had just had the abortion that day, and Phil had dumped her off at home, glad to be free of two problems. 

He’s been sailing on high seas the whole day. Terry was easy to convince. To her, the word of Phil was gospel. The amount of amphetamine in his system had kept him high above the clouds, reacting to everything as it came and not worrying, until it suddenly wore off in the middle of Terry’s procedure, as he was sitting on a plastic chair, reading a magazine with too many words he didn’t understand, his leg jiggling ceaselessly.

He felt numb, dysphoric. During the ensuing panic attack he had a vivid realization that his place was not here; not by Terry’s side. He hated her, honestly, and the abortion was the best thing to have happened to him since he could remember. Better not to add to an already doomed little family. He considered just bailing, but she had ridden with him. He tried to convince himself that even he wasn’t that big of a prick, and decided to stay.

But he knew her. She was going to want to hug him. Kiss him. She would want him to comfort her and it was the last thing he wanted to be doing. Best to dump her at the curb in front of her house, then. Make some excuse. He was good at making excuses.

But beneath all this trivial planning, his mind was slowly absorbing the possibility that drugs had been the cause of this whole disaster. He had been touching on it briefly in his mind for some time, as it seemed that trouble fell upon Phil on a seemingly daily basis lately. He was on drugs when he was stupid enough to bed her, was on drugs the next day when she called him crying, asking why he had left her in the middle of the night. Of course, he had done so because he needed drugs.

And he hated her. And the drugs made that feeling most prominent.

She was a whiner, a piss ant. In her mind she was a princess that needed rescuing, and refused to handle her own problems without crying piteously for male companionship and support. He fell into it because when he was high Terry was nowhere near as annoying as she was in real life, and he felt tolerable toward her tantrums, and fucking her felt good. 

As the procedure and Phil’s panic continued, he began to think of how he could just get out of the cycle of crap he was stuck in. There had to be a way.

 _Maybe quit the shit_ , he thought, and immediately he felt a little thrill of panic and exhilaration. What if he was to quit and be free of his troubles? What if he could get his shit together and be the first one in his family to have a decent life?

What if?

It was the first time he had really thought about quitting, and was convinced that it would be easy if his head was in the right place. And for that to happen, he needed to get rid of Terry.

 _Fine, I can do it. Just dump the chick and my dumb fucking problems on the curb in front of her house and just drive away. Slowly_ , he began nodding his head. Yeah. He could do this.

Terry came out of the room not long after this revelation, her sweater wrapped around her shoulders. There were tear stains on her face and she seemed to be trembling. She looked at Phil and smiled tremulously, her eyes bright and hopeful. Jesus, she practically had her arms outstretched to hug him. Phil swallowed his disgust as best he could and offered a wan smile back.

“C’mon,” he said, getting up from the hard plastic chair and walking toward the exit. He made no move to comfort her. “Let’s get out of this fucking place.”

“’Kay,” she replied in a small voice, and followed him obediently out of the frosted glass doors and into the bright and sweltering summer heat.

They got into Phil’s car silently. He started the engine, paused for a moment, and then sat back in his seat, his hands resting on the steering wheel. There was a long, awkward silence, and then he turned to face her. “I’m taking you home. You have to, like, rest or whatever.”

Instantly Terry became animated, her hands flying out to touch his arms. “No! Please…please, I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to be alone. I want to be with you. Please!”

A withdrawal headache was beginning to insinuate itself into Phil’s temples and he irritably leaned away from her touches. “I can’t. I gotta work in half an hour. I’ve got a big order to fill tonight.” It was a lie, of course. Business lately had been shit.

“Let me come with you!” Terry cried. “I’ll be quiet! I’ll help!”

“You need rest,” he mumbled dismissively, and put the car in reverse.

“N-no I don’t! I’m fine! C’mon Phil, please!”

Phil had had enough. “Shut _up_ , Terry! Jesus!”

Her hands jerked away from him as though she had been burned. She folded her hands in her lap again, the animation leaving her as quickly as it had come. Her head dipped and she turned to face the window. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

“I just…I just know what’s best for you, okay?” Phil said. “I’m trying to help you, for God’s sake.”

“You’re right,” she murmured, and turning back to him offered him a wan, defeated smile, a familiar smile. “You do know what’s best for me. Thanks for looking out and… and stuff.”

“Yeah,” Phil sighed. “No problem.”

They drove the rest of the way to Terry’s house in silence. When he dropped her at the curb he mentally dumped his addiction, and all his problems, with her. Good riddance to bad business. 

He drove home smiling.

 

***

 

Only ten minutes had passed but Phil was feeling significantly less confident; his head was throbbing and his mouth was dry. His smile had disappeared. It hadn’t taken long; it disappeared as soon as he had opened the door to his shitty apartment and saw his shitty roommate Jason sucking on his shitty bong, just like always. Nothing had changed. Terry hadn’t changed. Phil hadn’t, either, but he wasn’t aware of it yet. As dismal as he felt when coming home he also felt determined to leave this place behind, these people behind, all of this shit behind. 

Jason looked up at Phil when he heard the door close. “’Sup? They cut that thing out?”

“Huh?”

Jason’s eyebrow rose. “The kid. They cut it out or what?”

“Oh, yeah,” muttered Phil distractedly. “Sucked it out, yeah.”

“Good riddance, right? Wanna celebrate?” Jason held up a packet of white powder and jiggled it for emphasis.

“I, uh…” Phil was sweating. It came down to this. He could leave this all behind, become someone. Leave this whole damnable town in his dust. Maybe even go to college for something. No more waking up sweating and shaking, no more fights, no more bad choices, no more money spent on escaping to a place that always sent him back to the hell from which he had tried to escape. 

But as he watched Jason dangle the baggie, he felt his mouth water and he couldn’t do anything to stop it. After all, it had been all he’d known since he was a teenager. Speed, heroine; they sang him sweet songs when he couldn’t sleep. Comforted him like a mother when he was upset. Took him away from Terry, from everybody, if only for a while. It was easier…

No. He could escape. He could get up and walk right on back out the door and close it behind him and never look back. He could be somebody.

_I could go to college…_

_But_ …

After what felt like an eternity, he heaved a large sigh and flopped back into his old chair, offering Jason a smile that didn’t touch his eyes. 

“Fuck it,” he muttered resignedly. “Let’s celebrate.”

Outside, the night crashed in and blotted out the daylight like the flipping of a light switch…or the closing of a tomb. 

Phil was oblivious.


End file.
